Mayer & Cie. at Simatex: A strong local trade fair focused on the future

14.05.2018

Argentina’s textile industry gets together every other year at the Simatex trade fair in Buenos Aires. The textile machinery fair is held at the same time and the same venue as the Confemaq (garment machinery) and Emitex (suppliers) trade fairs. Jointly the industry event, which took place in the Argentine capital from 10 to 13 April this year, is one of the largest of its kind in South America. It attracts a correspondingly large and wide-ranging number of mainly local trade visitors. “The entire trade fair is geared to the Argentine textile market, where it meets with a very good response,” explained Horst Maier, Mayer & Cie.’s regional sales manager. “Our stand was extremely well visited and we were able to welcome pretty well all of our local customers at the Simatex.” The German textile machinery manufacturer Mayer & Cie., along with its local representative Dimatex, is a regular exhibitor at the trade fair.

At first glance, it might seem surprising, Horst Maier said, that only a few foreign trade visitors attended the show. But, for one, the Argentine textile industry had concentrated on the domestic market due to export duties and trade barriers. For another, neighbouring countries from Brazil to Peru hold textile trade fairs of their own at which Mayer & Cie. also regularly takes part.

In Argentina itself, Mayer & Cie. has traditionally been very well positioned. Argentina is the third-largest market for circular knitting machines in the region. That was why the Mayer team had with it a very high quality trade fair exhibit: a D4 2.2 HPI, which is already well established in the market. This high-performance circular knitting machine comes with 4.4 systems per inch and delivers the world’s highest production output for interlock fabrics. Mayer & Cie. exhibited the machine for the first time at the Simatex with a giant frame that enables it to knit very large bales of fabric, thereby further improving its efficiency. These benefits are “essential in the Argentine market, probably because of high local wage costs,” Horst Maier said.

Apart from the machine on show, the trade fair team noted a growing interest in fabrics such as spacer and plush for which there has been less demand in the past. Individual customers also displayed keen interest in jacquard fashion fabrics. “This broad attention shows us that in Argentina we can continue to look forward to exciting development opportunities for a wide range of technologies,” Horst Maier concluded.